Monday, April 11, 2011

2011 NOTY: Bulltron Regional, Part 3

Before we plunge into the bottom half of the Bulltron, a note from your sponsors:

As we type, 500 more votes have been cast in the Mercedes Bunz-Col. Many-Bears Grinder match -- 2,300 to 1,800 -- than in the one directly above it in the same post. Balloting was equal for the first 800 or so votes, and it was Grinder in a rout. Then, 200 votes later, it was Bunz by a substantial margin. We realized we had failed to activate ballot-box-stuffing controls (i.e., one vote per URL), and so we did. And lo and behold, the race tightened again.

Now the gap is 500 and we don't know whether someone has figured out a way around the controls or whether Europe is rising to vote for MrsBunz, the self-described "visionary writer on digital technology & society published in English, German, Spanish, French, Dutch" and contributor to a reductio ad absurdummanifesto on internet journalism.

In any case, we're docking Bunz 200 votes, and we suspect it should be more. Onward.

We love us some Joe Shortsleeve. The surname, as far as we can determine, comes from the French Courtemanche. Classy. But the English translation coupled with the monosyllabic 'merican first name is aurally fantastic. Joe is the "chief correspondent" for a Boston TV station, most recently the subject of interweb anger over a gotcha story in which he "caught" a Boston firetruck parked at a grocery store at lunchtime. Inside, the city's bravest were, um, buying lunch. The point: They were using the truck -- the public's truck! paid for with taxpayer dollars! -- to drive to the store and buy lunch. Which, Joe was told, is perfectly fine.

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About NOTY

Name of the Year was founded in 1983 on an Ivy League campus. Its mission has remained unchanged: to discover, verify, nominate, elect and disseminate great names. All names included here are, to the best of our knowledge, real. No malice is intended.